1. http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/
Incorporating Tools into the Online Environment
Glogster.Com, Reading Comprehension, & Short
Story Analysis
In the English Teaching major at Universidad Latina, we have two Reading Skills
courses in which students’ vocabulary, reading comprehension, and understanding of
short story plot structure is developed. When teaching the second of these two courses,
I have my students work on blogs, wikis, glogs, and other Web 2.0 tools to engage
students into PBL tasks to achieve course learning goals and objectives.
In the past, while working with them by means of WebQuests, I have had students
create their own interactive posters in Gloster.Com with a short story written by Jack
London entitled To Build a Fire.
ABCD Objective for Reading Skills and Short Story Plot Analysis
After being trained on how to create a poster (glog) on Glogster.Com, students will
create their own glog to analyze the plot in Jack London’s To Build a Fire and to create
a synopsis of the story’s plot by accurately summarizing the story in a vodcast, which
will be embedded in their posters, and by accurately identifying the story’s conflict,
rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
As stated in the ABCD objective for this online task, learners will be introduced and
trained on the use (and potentials) of Glogster.Com. They will also be given a WebQuest
2. http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/
to be developed along with their reading of To Build a Fire by Jack London, which will be
used to assess student understanding of short story’s structure. Additionally, students will
be asked to create a vodcast, which will be embedded within their glogs, in which they
are verbally summarizing the story.
As a way to materialize the creation of an electronic poster or glog, Glogster.Com
was chosen due to its versatile features and potentials to incorporate elements coming
from other websites such as youtube, flickr, etc. Once students get the knack of the use
of this web 2.0 tool, they will be asked to create their own and personalized posters based
on the WebQuest provided to them via the class site in Sites.Google.Com. Once their
glogs are produced, learners are asked to send their poster’s web address to get the
embedding code to be displayed in the class site for partners to provide peers feedback
and constructive criticism.
As for challenges that can be expected while developing this reading-web 2.0
assignment, students who lack some basic knowledge of html codes or embedding tools
are helped out so they can complete the glog creation. It is oftentimes the most common
problem students confront when creating an electronic poster. For that reason, I have
two videos that illustrate the step-by-step creation of a glog in Glogster.Com:
a) Video 1: http://youtu.be/1N5NMo3ZkcY
b) Video 2: http://youtu.be/MvC47fUANLk
To fully comprehend the scope of this teaching reflections, it is highly advisable that
the following topics must be expanded further:
Glogs in educational contexts
Google Sites for education
Writing objectives
WebQuests in language learning
3. http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/
Professor Jonathan Acuña-Solano
ELT Trainer, Instructor & Curriculum Developer based in Costa Rica
Active NCTE – Costa Rica Member
Resource Teacher & Curricular Developer at CCCN
Senior ELT Instructor at Universidad Latina, Costa Rica, since 1998
Contact Information:
Twitter @jonacuso
Email: jonacuso@gmail.com
Pronunciation
Development
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BIN-04 Reading Skills 1 Reading Skills
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English Language Teaching Journal
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Article published on Friday, June 13, 2014
How to quote this blog entry:
Acuña, J. (2014, June 13). Incorporating Tools into the Online Environment:
Glogster.Com, Reading Comprehension, & Short Story Analysis: http://reflective-online-
teaching.blogspot.com/2014/06/glogstercom-reading-comprehension-short.html
4. http://reflective-online-teaching.blogspot.com/
GlogsterTMEDU. (2014). Glogster.Com. http://edu.glogster.com/?ref=com
Google Sites. (n.d.). Google.Com. http://sites.google.com
London, J. (n.d.). To build a Fire. Retrieved from American English (Bureau of
Educational and Cultural Affairs) website:
http://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/to-build-a-fire.pdf
Penn State Learning Design Community Hub. (2010). Writing Objectives. Retrieved from
Penn State University website:
http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/learningdesign/objectives/writingobjectives
